There was a brief time, four or five years ago, when something (expat maybe?) was mistakenly placed in xbase, so you had to install the xbase set for a whole bunch of ports/packages. That situation didn't last. And even then, you didn't have to run X.

I'm just guessing, but I suspect the pilot bailed once the aircraft was no longer over populated areas, and that it was flown into the ground under remote control. And since the crash happened in Mexico, the FAA probably didn't have too much involvement other than maybe adding some of their own experiments.

Just today we hear of another TSA screener busted, this time for stealing iPads. How hard would it be to find one who would happily pass anything at all through his checkpoint if the price was right?

Even "paleoconservative" Alex Jones is firing up his followers against government internet surveillance legislation in the works. Here's an example from one of his sites that even made the Drudge Report last Saturday.

All that's needed to drag this thing out until someone goes broke/dies is for the US court to decide that the copyright belongs to Steele.

One of the comments to the Techdirt FA links to a lawsuit Steele filed against Bell in US Federal Court last December. Unfortunately, it costs money to get much in the way of details, but apparently it hasn't been resolved yet.

Politicians of both parties speak of seeking common principles on which they can all agree. It seems they've found one.

The word you're looking for is greed.

I play the pedal steel guitar, one of the few electrics that doesn't sound better through a Marshall. Steel guitarists mostly rely on Peaveys like the Nashville, Session, and Vegas models. Peavey is a privately owned company, and Hartley, its founder, is now in his 70s. Maybe because he's a Mississippi boy, his company has produced amps for us since the '60s, even though we're very much a niche market.

When he's gone, I will mourn Hartley Peavey as much as I do Les Paul, Leo Fender, and Jim Marshall.

Would "Privacy Star" compliance be more trustworthy than Energy Star? Remember when Congressional auditors got, among other things, a Gasoline-powered alarm clock an Energy Star certification?

One of my dogs was born February 29, 2004. I guess that makes him 2, 8, or 56.

But then his name is Theo (really!), so maybe that makes him about two months shy of 3.5

You can buy a neutered MP5 with the single-shot trigger group. Try buying one with the 2- or 3-shot burst or the full auto trigger group. You can buy a neutered M-16 de-milled to single-fire. Try buying a real one.

Unless you're the state.

The point is that the state will never allow citizens to be on the same footing as itself when it comes to firearms.

And do you really think that more men were killed by snipers than by M-16s and AK-47s? Incidentally, at least two local police departments near me will issue MP5s (selective fire!) to any officer who cares to qualify.

That is not so. The state can buy as many MP5s as they can afford. Mere citizens cannot.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Any decent large-scale eavesdropping facility like, oh, I don't know, the one the NSA is building in Utah will be scanning VoIP traffic for audible triggers ("bomb" "whitehouse" "boom") and will certainly notice when the nominal codec doesn't match the payload. Such traffic will certainly be flagged for closer inspection.